Atlantic Leathers are an Icelandic tannery who exclusively process fishskins for use in all kinds of leathergoods from shoes, belts, bags and adornments on bags. The Atlantic Leathers team create their own designs and special effects on the leather giving it a unique look and enabling them to transform a waste product into a high fashion leather.
Production at the tannery averages several hundred thousand feet per year. Raw materials include Icelandic salmon and wolf fish and perch from Africa.
The skin of the wolf fish features characteristic black spots which are still visible after tanning and dying. These spots are a key feature of the appearance while skins have no surface patterns from the scales. Customers of Atlantic Leathers have used wolf fish skins to create a huge range of articles including ladies’ shoes made by Loewe, and even a ladies’ evening dress.
The salmon skin has a distinctive delicate texture and a pattern which is centred along the side line. Skins have an average size of 60cm x 12cm at their widest point. Salmon skins are very thin, soft and elastic but are stronger than equal thicknesses of other types of leather.
The Nile perch is a large fish caught in lake Victoria in Africa. The leather from this species has larger scales than salmon and, therefore, the resultant leather is thicker and has a rougher texture. Nile Perch skins are larger than those of other species with an average size of 1.2 sq ft. The resultant leathers are available in a range of effects and have been featured in bags by top fashion designers such as John Galliano.
Atlantic Leather’s major markets are Europe (particularly Italy and France) and the US and the company are able to cater for all sizes of batches.
